Name and etymology

The English word "Jew" continues Middle EnglishGyw, Iewe. These terms derive from Old Frenchgiu, earlier juieu, which through elision had dropped the letter "d" from the Medieval LatinIudaeus, which, like the New TestamentGreek term Ioudaios, meant both "Jew" and "Judean" / "of Judea".[47] The Greek term was a loan from AramaicY'hūdāi, corresponding to HebrewיְהוּדִיYehudi, originally the term for a member of the tribe of Judah or the people of the kingdom of Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob.[48] Genesis 29:35 and 49:8 connect the name "Judah" with the verb yada, meaning "praise", but scholars generally agree that the name of both the patriarch and the kingdom instead have a geographic origin—possibly referring to the gorges and ravines of the region.[49]

It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun.[53]